Personal CV Website

28th June, 2008

I have started work on a new design for http://www.mattwreford.com/, the owner of which felt that his existing site wasn’t really up to scratch. Knowing only that the client likes very simple and minimal designs, here is a screenshot of my initial layout and general concept for the site.

It will be quite a simple structure of 5 pages (four plus a link to a CV download) as requested, tabbed, and with two main content columns that serve different purposes on each page. For the CSS aspect of this design I have experimented with fluid column widths on both sides, where the content is grouped clearly in two blocks but they centre and expand within their columns with the resizing of the page.

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Calm Down Sketch

14th June, 2008

Here is a pencil sketch of Calm Down (from the 80′s cartoon Stoppit and Tidyup) drawn while waiting between support messages for a server yesterday. Very theraputic.

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Ocean Addict Drupal Site Update

12th June, 2008

Here is a preview of the new design (essentially the same theme) based around Drupal as a core. I’m still mightily impressed with the capabilities of this CMS.

The design is pushing the boundaries of CSS a little bit and its also using transparent PNG backgrounds like before, but now the box sizes are flexible to accomodate a fluid width design!

Finished Snugglebums Logo

7th June, 2008

I completed this design a while back, but the original design concept image I posted up still seems to get a fair amount of interest so here is a finished (but not the final agreed) version of the logo for the site as well.

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Experimenting With Drupal

31st May, 2008

I have felt a little bit discontented with the way the Ocean Addict site has been going from an architectural point-of-view, particularly since adding the shop which is using the ancient system of OSCommerce and its flakey table-based layout and template system. The Ocean Addict site was always going to be an online store but initially started off as a related news and information blog with the view to expanding it. However my choice of using a blog as the core of the site (even one as expandable as WordPress), and knowing very little about what open source CMS‘s have to offer, is looking more and more limiting.

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The Gnome Quest

28th May, 2008

When I first acquired Half Life 2, Episode 2 I just had to see how many of the quests I could complete once I had got past the act of playing the storyline properly once through. And of course I attempted to complete the particularly aggravating Little Rocket Man quest, which essentially sees you carry an ornamental gnome (found hidden in a radio station at the very beginning) throughout the entire game all while doing the challenges you face normally.

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e-Commerce Buttons

23rd May, 2008

Here are some new buttons to replace the horrific GIF images that came with the clean install of oscommerce on Ocean Addict. In order, they are Accounts, Shopping Cart and Checkout.

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African Sundew Plants

18th May, 2008

I have experimentally planted some of my African Cape Sundew’s offspring (drosera capensis) down by our garden pond where they seem to have settled in quite nicely with the thousands of flies that hover about around there. I found a broken pot in which to plant them, that I partially buried on its side so that a bit of water would be pooled in it, but also begin draining off if the level gets too high.

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